Clearly, I have absolutely no taste whatsoever

In the same week as I confessed that J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace was my all time, most-loathed novel.... the Observer's poll of 150 literary luminaries votes it the best novel of the last 25 years.  Never mind, my opinion remains unchanged.  And I do think it's unfair of them to tantalise us with the sentence "Only one writer voted for himself" and not to name names.

Comments

[Max]

I really did not like Disgrace either - can no longer recall exactly why, as I read it some time ago, but I do recall thinking it was very overrated. It's funny how opinions on something can diverge so much.

[Debra Hamel]

I have to take issue with you on this: I read both Disgrace and Waiting for the Barbarians, and I hated both of them, but I hated Waiting for the Barbarians a lot more.

I don't remember much either, except that there was, in Barbarians, a kind of purposeful vagueness that I couldn't stand. I'll never read him again.

[Lee]

Interesting. I thought Disgrace was excellent. I particularly liked the intersection of the personal and social, and thought that it captured the complexities of post-aparteid South Africa very well.